The Latest School-Lunch Nonsense

      170 Comments on The Latest School-Lunch Nonsense

After the USDA ordered schools to further reduce the fat and calories in school lunches, they were left with a teensy little problem:  kids don’t like the meals and are throwing them away.  Duh.  Never fear … according to an article a reader sent me, the feds have come up with a solution to fix their last solution.  Let’s examine the rampant stupidity at work.

There will be more whole grains on school lunch menus this year, along with a wider selection of fruits and vegetables and other healthy options.

Whole grains?  I thought we were talking about healthy options.

The challenge is getting children to eat them.

Well, that’s part of what makes kids so darned frustrating:  they want to eat what they like, not what committees in Washington think they should eat.

“We don’t want healthy trash cans. We want kids who are eating this stuff,” said Kern Halls, a former Disney World restaurant manager who now works in school nutrition at Orange County Public Schools in Florida.

Ms. Halls, it’s nice to know your reach exceeds your grasp, but aim for the realistic goal:  Go for the healthy trash cans.

At a School Nutrition Association conference in Denver this summer, food workers heard tips about how to get children to make healthy food choices in the cafeteria.

Translation:  government food workers are learning how to talk kids into ordering meals they don’t like.

The problem is a serious one for the nation’s lunch-line managers, who are implementing the biggest update to federal school-food guidelines in 15 years.

The problem became more serious after the biggest update to federal school-food guidelines in 15 years, since those guidelines call for removing the last vestiges of flavor from school food.

New Department of Agriculture guidelines taking effect this fall set calorie and sodium limits for school meals.

Brilliant.  So when they leave school craving fuel and salt, the kids will run out and help support their local 7-11.

Schools must offer dark green, orange or red vegetables and legumes at least once a week, and students are required to select at least one vegetable or fruit per meal.

Kids are required to select at least one vegetable or fruit per meal?  How exactly is that rule going to be enforced?  What if Little Johnny tells the cafeteria worker he doesn’t like the fat-free broccoli or the peaches in heavy syrup?  Does he have to stay after school?  Does a cafeteria enforcement officer put the vegetable on his plate and “invite” him to eat it in the same way the governments “invite” businesses to follow federal regulations?

Flavored milk must be nonfat, and there’s a ban on artificial, artery-clogging trans fats.

I see.  Since too many kids are overweight, we’re going prevent them from consuming any appetite-controlling fat when they drink that appetite-stimulating sugar in the strawberry milk.  Once again, the local 7-11 or other nearby snack store thanks you.

At the conference, Halls demonstrated some healthy recipes for curious cafeteria managers, joining White House chef Sam Kass to prepare a veggie wrap using a whole-wheat tortilla.

And afterwards, the curious cafeteria managers went out to restaurant for some real food.

Halls’ main mission, though, was not pushing new recipes but teaching cafeteria managers marketing strategies used to great success by private-sector restaurants and food producers.  The first step, cafeteria workers were told, is to stop thinking of lunchtime as a break from academics, but a crucial part of a child’s school day.

When I was in grade school, we thought of lunchtime as a time to eat lunch.  That worked out pretty well, actually, because our moms packed lunches we liked.

“Your job is not to serve kids food.”

Mission accomplished.

“Your job is motivate kids to be adventurous and healthy eaters,” said Barb Mechura, head of nutrition services at schools in Hopkins, Minn.

Translation:  your job is to harangue kids into eating low-fat crap they don’t like.

Her school district recruited parent volunteers to be elementary-school “food coaches,” touring cafeterias and handing out samples of fruits and vegetables. The food coaches would also demonstrate eating them.

The feds have finally figured out why kids don’t eat fat-free vegetables:  they don’t know how.  Once they see a demonstration by a coach, that will all change.

“Look, Billy!  We’re supposed to put the dry broccoli in our mouths and chew it!  Wait until I go home and show this to my mom!”

Food coaching may seem silly …

Do ya think?

… but kids who have had chicken only as nuggets or patties may not know how to eat bone-in chicken and need to see how a grown-up eats it before trying it themselves.

I’m pretty sure the average kid could figure out how to eat a chicken leg without a lesson from a coach.

As the kids graduate to middle and high schools, and grown-ups in the cafeteria aren’t as welcome, schools can tap student ambassadors to be food coaches …

School paper headline of the future:  SCHOOL LUNCH AMBASSADOR FOUND STUFFED IN TRASH CAN.

… perhaps asking the baseball team or a popular student athlete dish out veggies.

If the popular athlete wants to stay popular, he won’t go around telling other high-school kids to eat their vegetables.

Or, high school seniors might give underclassmen samples of a new vegetable coming to the cafeteria.

Upperclassmen have been known to hand out samples to incoming freshmen, but trust me, it’s not that kind of vegetable matter.

School cafeterias also are using cutting-edge market research. They’re filming what kids eat, test-marketing new products before they go on the line and doing menu surveys to find out exactly what students think about a dish’s taste, appearance and temperature.

Is This tastes like @#$% an option on the survey?

You get the idea.  Since pushing low-fat milk and healthywholegrains for the past two decades has demonstrably failed to make kids leaner, the USDA has of course decided this merely proves we need to do it again, only bigger.  Hmmm, this is sounding more and more like a perfect federal program:  complicated, expensive, based on bad ideas and therefore doomed to fail.  Since the stated goal here is to turn the tide on childhood obesity, perhaps we should hop in a time machine and visit one of my grade-school teachers.  After all, we didn’t have a childhood obesity problem in 1966.

(Buzz.  Whir.  Buzz.  Zing.  And other time-machine noises.)

“Mrs. Owens!  Mrs. Owens!  Hey, it’s me, little Tommy Naughton.”

“Well, hello, Tommy.  Funny, I don’t remember you being bald.”

“Yeah, that came later.  Listen, I need your advice.”

“Stay in school and keep studying math.”

“I did that, thanks.  What I need to know now is what you’re doing to keep all these kids so skinny – well, except for Brett Collins, of course.”

“Poor Brett.  I wish you boys wouldn’t call him The Seal.”

“He seems to like the nickname.  Anyway, what’s the secret?  How are you, as a school official, keeping these kids from becoming overweight?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, I mean, the school must check our lunches and make sure we’re not consuming too much sodium or too many calories, right?”

“Why on earth would we do that?  These are growing children.”

“But you at least watch our fat intake, right?  Skim milk and all that?”

“Skim milk?!  If we started serving skim at milk time, the parents would stop giving the children their milk money.  I wouldn’t want to be at the next PTA meeting if we made these kids drink skim milk in school.”

“So what’s your secret?  What’s the protocol for school lunches?”

“Well, it works like this, Little Tommy.  We stop classes for 45 minutes.  The kids eat lunch. Then we start classes again.”

“And you don’t do anything to ensure that the kids don’t become fat?”

“Of course not.  This is a school, not a diet center.”

“Sounds like an excellent program.”

When I was in grade school, nobody thought about how many calories we were consuming.  Nobody watched our fat intake.  Nobody ordered us to eat whole grains or a serving of fruit or vegetables.  We just ate lunch.  And yet somehow, nearly all of us (Brett Collins notwithstanding) were skinny kids.

Asking the USDA to solve childhood obesity is like asking the guy who cleaned out your bank account for financial advice.


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170 thoughts on “The Latest School-Lunch Nonsense

  1. Michelle

    My daughter just started school this year and we qualified for free breakfasts. It helps with the cost of food but the trade off isn’t that great. I go to breakfast each morning to make sure she gets to class afterward. I’m hungry but can’t touch her food because of the rules, even if she doesn’t eat it. I see sooo much good fruit go to the trash can. Then when she comes home around lunch all she wants is food and more food. I may start making breakfast for her again because she is getting no protein in her breakfast, just milk, “juice”, a carb of some sort and a fruit. She is not even close to being over weight and I would rather feed her what her body wants then let some lunch lady tell her what she wants.

  2. Stan

    Dude when you were in school kids weren’t fat, but when you were in school food was a lot different. The crap they eat in and out of school is completely different on a molecular level than what was available to you.

    Your line of reasoning is completely false.

    Of course it was different. We didn’t have the USDA pushing grains and low-fat everything, approving sugar-laden chocolate milk while banning whole milk, etc. Exactly my point.

  3. Stan

    Dude when you were in school kids weren’t fat, but when you were in school food was a lot different. The crap they eat in and out of school is completely different on a molecular level than what was available to you.

    Your line of reasoning is completely false.

    Of course it was different. We didn’t have the USDA pushing grains and low-fat everything, approving sugar-laden chocolate milk while banning whole milk, etc. Exactly my point.

  4. Melanie Jackson

    Hi. Health experts are not trying to put kids on a “diet”, it just seems this way because for so many years parents have fed their kids foods that we did not know were unhealthy. Really what the schools are doing is having the kids eat a healthy, balance lifestyle that will nourish all systems of their body.

    You shouldn’t look at it as if the schools are offering low fat this and low calorie that, instead you should understand that they are offering kids a variety of foods that the Canada’s food guide or American food guide recommends. There are guidelines out there for a reason and registered dieticians that go to school for several years study how to body works and how food affects our health. There are tons of studies that prove that too much sugar causes diabetes and too much animal fat causes heart disease. Who are you really going to trust…this guy who is not in the medial field or people who actually study the body lol? I can only hope that when my daughter goes to school, that the school offers whole grains, lean meat and plenty of veggies and fruit.

    Let me give you a small nutrition lesson:

    White bread, white rice, white noodles are all striped of their nutrients and have been proven to raise insulin levels leading to diabetes and obesity. Whole grains have several nutrients that benefit your body including B vitamins which help break down fats/carbs. Within moderation, whole grains (carbohydrates/starches) are extremely important in your diet. Half your plate should be veggies/fruit, then the other half should be divided into two (carbohydrates and meat or alternatives). The human body requires a balance of ALL food groups within moderation. Certain food groups you need less of and certain ones you need more. Each food group contributes different nutrients to your body and helps support different systems within it. Meats such as hot dogs (lips & ass), hamburgers, sausages, bacon etc.. all are unhealthy meats which should be eaten within moderation. Meats such as turkey breast, chicken breasts are much healthier. Tuna and fish are also important and are a great alliterative and add variety to your diet. Fish is also very good for your brain. Perhaps if people ate more fish (non-deep fried fish), they would have a smarter brain and know all this information that I am giving them. Remember that meat (or whichever protein source) you choose, should only be the size of a deck of cards. Also, note that at certain ages, your body requires a specific number of servings (so don’t go over and don’t fall under). Veggies and fruit are obviously so healthy for you and should cover half your plate at each meal. All snacks should include different food groups ie: carrot sticks with dip, whole wheat crackers and a yogurt. For parents who have a baby, try not to give them premade pre-packaged foods ie: Gerber graduates. These types of foods contain tons of preservatives and sugars. Note that just because it says no sugar added, doesn’t mean there isn’t a sugar source in there. Sugar can come in different forms and they can sneak it in there. Lastly, of course your body requires a certain amount of fat but be careful not to mix up which kind! Fat from junk food sources (McDonalds, Doritos, ice cream, animal fats through meat) these all are unhealthy fats and will raise your LDL cholesterol otherwise nicknamed as Lethal cholesterol. Good fats (avocado, nuts, milk, dairy, lean meats) are healthy fats and will actually help your body speed its metabolism up and ensure that you have more HDL cholesterol otherwise nicknamed healthy cholesterol) Also, it is true that the breast of chicken and turkey are leaner than the legs and wings.

    Remember that you need to exercise 30 minutes a day to maintain a healthy weight but for people trying to lose weight, they should be exercising 45-60 minutes per day with 3 sessions of some kind of resistance activities. I think that gyms actually cause people to fail when it comes to exercising. It is always best to move your body, have fun, go outside or participate in some kind of indoor sport.

    I hope this helps to clear up the misconceptions that so many people seem to have on this blog. Also, all this information that I have written, is all from my registered Ontario dietician which I see regularly.

    Don’t make excuses that will make you feel better to eat unhealthy foods. Eat them within moderation and you will be fine. The best advice I was ever given was by my naturopath, they told me to think of food as medicine for your body. Would you really think that fast food could act as a medicine for your body?

    As my dietician says:
    Stay healthy everyone, live within moderation, shop on the walls of the grocery stores as much as possible, eat a variety of colours (veggies, fruit), have a balance of all food groups, make sure you are getting enough calories to keep your metabolism running, make sure not to eat too many servings, and enjoy a treat once a week.

    🙂

    I won’t even bother to reply point by point, Melanie. I’ll just say if you think my audience is going to buy the same old standard-issue, failed advice our government has been pushing since the 1970s — i.e., since the beginning of the rise in obesity and diabetes — or if you think they’ll be impressed by the awe-inspiring title of “registered dietician,” you’re obviously not a regular reader of this blog.

  5. Melanie Jackson

    Hi. Health experts are not trying to put kids on a “diet”, it just seems this way because for so many years parents have fed their kids foods that we did not know were unhealthy. Really what the schools are doing is having the kids eat a healthy, balance lifestyle that will nourish all systems of their body.

    You shouldn’t look at it as if the schools are offering low fat this and low calorie that, instead you should understand that they are offering kids a variety of foods that the Canada’s food guide or American food guide recommends. There are guidelines out there for a reason and registered dieticians that go to school for several years study how to body works and how food affects our health. There are tons of studies that prove that too much sugar causes diabetes and too much animal fat causes heart disease. Who are you really going to trust…this guy who is not in the medial field or people who actually study the body lol? I can only hope that when my daughter goes to school, that the school offers whole grains, lean meat and plenty of veggies and fruit.

    Let me give you a small nutrition lesson:

    White bread, white rice, white noodles are all striped of their nutrients and have been proven to raise insulin levels leading to diabetes and obesity. Whole grains have several nutrients that benefit your body including B vitamins which help break down fats/carbs. Within moderation, whole grains (carbohydrates/starches) are extremely important in your diet. Half your plate should be veggies/fruit, then the other half should be divided into two (carbohydrates and meat or alternatives). The human body requires a balance of ALL food groups within moderation. Certain food groups you need less of and certain ones you need more. Each food group contributes different nutrients to your body and helps support different systems within it. Meats such as hot dogs (lips & ass), hamburgers, sausages, bacon etc.. all are unhealthy meats which should be eaten within moderation. Meats such as turkey breast, chicken breasts are much healthier. Tuna and fish are also important and are a great alliterative and add variety to your diet. Fish is also very good for your brain. Perhaps if people ate more fish (non-deep fried fish), they would have a smarter brain and know all this information that I am giving them. Remember that meat (or whichever protein source) you choose, should only be the size of a deck of cards. Also, note that at certain ages, your body requires a specific number of servings (so don’t go over and don’t fall under). Veggies and fruit are obviously so healthy for you and should cover half your plate at each meal. All snacks should include different food groups ie: carrot sticks with dip, whole wheat crackers and a yogurt. For parents who have a baby, try not to give them premade pre-packaged foods ie: Gerber graduates. These types of foods contain tons of preservatives and sugars. Note that just because it says no sugar added, doesn’t mean there isn’t a sugar source in there. Sugar can come in different forms and they can sneak it in there. Lastly, of course your body requires a certain amount of fat but be careful not to mix up which kind! Fat from junk food sources (McDonalds, Doritos, ice cream, animal fats through meat) these all are unhealthy fats and will raise your LDL cholesterol otherwise nicknamed as Lethal cholesterol. Good fats (avocado, nuts, milk, dairy, lean meats) are healthy fats and will actually help your body speed its metabolism up and ensure that you have more HDL cholesterol otherwise nicknamed healthy cholesterol) Also, it is true that the breast of chicken and turkey are leaner than the legs and wings.

    Remember that you need to exercise 30 minutes a day to maintain a healthy weight but for people trying to lose weight, they should be exercising 45-60 minutes per day with 3 sessions of some kind of resistance activities. I think that gyms actually cause people to fail when it comes to exercising. It is always best to move your body, have fun, go outside or participate in some kind of indoor sport.

    I hope this helps to clear up the misconceptions that so many people seem to have on this blog. Also, all this information that I have written, is all from my registered Ontario dietician which I see regularly.

    Don’t make excuses that will make you feel better to eat unhealthy foods. Eat them within moderation and you will be fine. The best advice I was ever given was by my naturopath, they told me to think of food as medicine for your body. Would you really think that fast food could act as a medicine for your body?

    As my dietician says:
    Stay healthy everyone, live within moderation, shop on the walls of the grocery stores as much as possible, eat a variety of colours (veggies, fruit), have a balance of all food groups, make sure you are getting enough calories to keep your metabolism running, make sure not to eat too many servings, and enjoy a treat once a week.

    🙂

    I won’t even bother to reply point by point, Melanie. I’ll just say if you think my audience is going to buy the same old standard-issue, failed advice our government has been pushing since the 1970s — i.e., since the beginning of the rise in obesity and diabetes — or if you think they’ll be impressed by the awe-inspiring title of “registered dietician,” you’re obviously not a regular reader of this blog.

  6. Brad

    This guy is just trying to justify eating unhealthy foods so he can feel good going to mcdonalds and kfc. Your film only focused on foods eaten in the schools, while you failed to analyse the other 2 meals eaten at home. Oh, and whole grains ARE indeed good for you, as your film said otherwise. I guess you forgot to read the countless studies that prove this. Like this one from goddam harvard: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/health-gains-from-whole-grains/

    My film didn’t focus on school meals at all. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

    The studies from goddam Harvard and elsewhere all compared eating whole grains to eating white flour, then declared whole grains health food because people had better outcomes eating them than eating white flour. By that logic, if I can demonstrate that people who smoke filtered cigarettes have lower rates of cancer than people who smoke unfiltered cigarettes, I can declare that filtered cigarettes prevent cancer. Just because one food isn’t as damaging as another, that doesn’t make it good.

    Show me the studies comparing people who ate identical diets, except one group ate whole grains and the other ate no grains at all. Then we can talk about those healthy whole grains.

  7. Brad

    This guy is just trying to justify eating unhealthy foods so he can feel good going to mcdonalds and kfc. Your film only focused on foods eaten in the schools, while you failed to analyse the other 2 meals eaten at home. Oh, and whole grains ARE indeed good for you, as your film said otherwise. I guess you forgot to read the countless studies that prove this. Like this one from goddam harvard: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/health-gains-from-whole-grains/

    My film didn’t focus on school meals at all. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

    The studies from goddam Harvard and elsewhere all compared eating whole grains to eating white flour, then declared whole grains health food because people had better outcomes eating them than eating white flour. By that logic, if I can demonstrate that people who smoke filtered cigarettes have lower rates of cancer than people who smoke unfiltered cigarettes, I can declare that filtered cigarettes prevent cancer. Just because one food isn’t as damaging as another, that doesn’t make it good.

    Show me the studies comparing people who ate identical diets, except one group ate whole grains and the other ate no grains at all. Then we can talk about those healthy whole grains.

  8. Brad

    by the way, you contridicted yourself in your film. at the start of the film you said it took a VERY long time to find footage of fat people. then later in the film, you said since grains were introduced it was easy to find fat people all around. im not sure anymore WHAT your arugment is…are you actually suggesting that people eat an all meat diet? are you suggesting that they limit veggies and fruit because if you are you seriously are crazy. you are asking to get cancer. its easy to stay healthy. lay off giving your kids brownies and when they are good, feed them oranges and they will learn to love fruit and think of fruit as candy rather than sugary things as rewards. people are fat because of junk food which includes too many grains, too many sugars, too many fatty meats, too much salty food etc…people are not fat from eating 5 servings of whole grains per day.

    You might want to watch the film again. I didn’t say after grains were introduced it was easy to find fat people all around. I said after the government told us to cut the fat and eat more carbohydrates, we saw a rise in both obesity and diabetes. And where exactly in the film did I say people should live on all-meat diets and not eat fruits or vegetables? Did you happen to catch the part where I said a fast-food diet isn’t a good diet because a good diet would include fruits and vegetables? I’m not surprised you aren’t sure what my argument is, since you apparently suffered hallucinations while watching the film.

    So salt makes us fat, does it? How exactly does that work? We’ve reduced the fat in our diets since the 1970s … did we get thinner as a result? And yes, people can certainly get fat from eating five servings of grains per day. That’s way too many carbohydrates for people who are insulin resistant. That’s why Dr. William Davis, author of “Wheat Belly,” has seen so many people (including himself) lose weight simply by eliminating wheat from their diets.

  9. Brad

    by the way you are very rude and arogant. if you want to win people over and have them believe your “facts” its better to be nice and try to educated them on your findings through solid researched evidence rather than being snarky with your replies.

    I’m sorry if you find replying to illogical arguments with logic to be rude and arrogant. Perhaps if you didn’t make illogical arguments on my blog, you wouldn’t get your tender feelings hurt.

  10. jane

    Moderation. Everything within moderation. Grains are good but in moderation…just like every other food. Balance and variety.comparing people would not be a good way becaufe every body metabolizes differently

    Comparing people is how studies are conducted. Grains may be tolerated in moderation, but they’re not good in moderation, and can cause damage to some people, even in moderation. We don’t need moderate amounts of gluten, gliadin, and lectins in our bodies any more than we need moderate amounts of cocaine or wormwood in our bodies.

  11. Brad

    by the way, you contridicted yourself in your film. at the start of the film you said it took a VERY long time to find footage of fat people. then later in the film, you said since grains were introduced it was easy to find fat people all around. im not sure anymore WHAT your arugment is…are you actually suggesting that people eat an all meat diet? are you suggesting that they limit veggies and fruit because if you are you seriously are crazy. you are asking to get cancer. its easy to stay healthy. lay off giving your kids brownies and when they are good, feed them oranges and they will learn to love fruit and think of fruit as candy rather than sugary things as rewards. people are fat because of junk food which includes too many grains, too many sugars, too many fatty meats, too much salty food etc…people are not fat from eating 5 servings of whole grains per day.

    You might want to watch the film again. I didn’t say after grains were introduced it was easy to find fat people all around. I said after the government told us to cut the fat and eat more carbohydrates, we saw a rise in both obesity and diabetes. And where exactly in the film did I say people should live on all-meat diets and not eat fruits or vegetables? Did you happen to catch the part where I said a fast-food diet isn’t a good diet because a good diet would include fruits and vegetables? I’m not surprised you aren’t sure what my argument is, since you apparently suffered hallucinations while watching the film.

    So salt makes us fat, does it? How exactly does that work? We’ve reduced the fat in our diets since the 1970s … did we get thinner as a result? And yes, people can certainly get fat from eating five servings of grains per day. That’s way too many carbohydrates for people who are insulin resistant. That’s why Dr. William Davis, author of “Wheat Belly,” has seen so many people (including himself) lose weight simply by eliminating wheat from their diets.

  12. Brad

    by the way you are very rude and arogant. if you want to win people over and have them believe your “facts” its better to be nice and try to educated them on your findings through solid researched evidence rather than being snarky with your replies.

    I’m sorry if you find replying to illogical arguments with logic to be rude and arrogant. Perhaps if you didn’t make illogical arguments on my blog, you wouldn’t get your tender feelings hurt.

  13. jane

    Moderation. Everything within moderation. Grains are good but in moderation…just like every other food. Balance and variety.comparing people would not be a good way becaufe every body metabolizes differently

    Comparing people is how studies are conducted. Grains may be tolerated in moderation, but they’re not good in moderation, and can cause damage to some people, even in moderation. We don’t need moderate amounts of gluten, gliadin, and lectins in our bodies any more than we need moderate amounts of cocaine or wormwood in our bodies.

  14. jamie

    I think grains are fine and very healthy for people who do not suffer from insulin resistance. for people who do however, they should limit them to less than 5 and for sure should watch that they are whole wheat rather than the white stuff that just turns straight into sugar. at least the whole wheat will give some nutrients to it. some people have thyroid problems that make their metabolism slow down causing them to gain weight which in turn causes them to get an insulin resistance problem. those types of people should try to reduce their grains and get their carbs from veggies, fruits and legumes and meats. some people have eaten too many grains or too many fatty meats or even too much fast food causing them to get an insulin problem which will turn into dieabetes if theya re not careful. i think the key here is to treat grains as something you eat a very small amount of. the food guide says to only eat 1/4 of it on your plate each meal so they are making sure people arent overeating on it. it also says not to eat too much meat. seems like the only good food to eat is veggies and fruit lol

    1) The food guide isn’t based on science and never has been.

    2) Fatty foods don’t cause insulin resistance. We don’t produce insulin in response to fat.

    3) Insulin resistance isn’t caused by getting fat. If it were, we wouldn’t have thin people developing type 2 diabetes.

    4) Grains are a relatively new addition to the diet and most humans throughout history didn’t eat them, so they are clearly not essential, no matter what the grain industry or the governments supporting their grain industries believe.

    5) There’s far more to the grain issue than just insulin resistance. The gluten and lectins can also provoke a number of health problems. Loren Cordain wrote extensively about them:

    http://tinyurl.com/95ncgea

  15. fred

    so let me see if i get this. animals have naturally occuring saturated fats which makes us feel full. and humans aren’t really meant to eat grains. We should only eat fruits, veggies and meat?

    Fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, nuts, tubers. That was the human diet for most of human history. I also include a bit of full-fat dairy in my diet (from grass-fed cows whenever possible), but I could of course live without it.

  16. jamie

    I think grains are fine and very healthy for people who do not suffer from insulin resistance. for people who do however, they should limit them to less than 5 and for sure should watch that they are whole wheat rather than the white stuff that just turns straight into sugar. at least the whole wheat will give some nutrients to it. some people have thyroid problems that make their metabolism slow down causing them to gain weight which in turn causes them to get an insulin resistance problem. those types of people should try to reduce their grains and get their carbs from veggies, fruits and legumes and meats. some people have eaten too many grains or too many fatty meats or even too much fast food causing them to get an insulin problem which will turn into dieabetes if theya re not careful. i think the key here is to treat grains as something you eat a very small amount of. the food guide says to only eat 1/4 of it on your plate each meal so they are making sure people arent overeating on it. it also says not to eat too much meat. seems like the only good food to eat is veggies and fruit lol

    1) The food guide isn’t based on science and never has been.

    2) Fatty foods don’t cause insulin resistance. We don’t produce insulin in response to fat.

    3) Insulin resistance isn’t caused by getting fat. If it were, we wouldn’t have thin people developing type 2 diabetes.

    4) Grains are a relatively new addition to the diet and most humans throughout history didn’t eat them, so they are clearly not essential, no matter what the grain industry or the governments supporting their grain industries believe.

    5) There’s far more to the grain issue than just insulin resistance. The gluten and lectins can also provoke a number of health problems. Loren Cordain wrote extensively about them:

    http://tinyurl.com/95ncgea

  17. fred

    so let me see if i get this. animals have naturally occuring saturated fats which makes us feel full. and humans aren’t really meant to eat grains. We should only eat fruits, veggies and meat?

    Fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, nuts, tubers. That was the human diet for most of human history. I also include a bit of full-fat dairy in my diet (from grass-fed cows whenever possible), but I could of course live without it.

  18. JimB

    HA, your very last sentence, that’s pretty much what’s happening, our country’s treasure (Fed, Treasury, etc) is being managed by ex Goldman Sachs crooks! I’m thinking you meant that, right?

    New jobs program coming soon, School Lunchroom Garbage Police. Includes full government benefits, sign up now!

    Don’t get me started on the Fed.

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